[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 23, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S306-S308]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       UNANIMOUS-CONSENT REQUEST

  Mr. DORGAN. I will offer one additional unanimous-consent request. It 
does deal specifically with something that I know the Senator from 
Idaho cares about because he raised it a few minutes ago. He was 
concerned I did not include it in my legislation. That is some 
forgiveness of the advanced crops deficiency payments for 1995.
  My legislation on page 3, which I introduced earlier today, and is at 
the desk, provides for the forgiveness of certain advanced deficiency 
payments for those crop producers who suffered a loss.
  The Senator from Idaho raised that. I know he cares about it and I 
care about it. If we cannot pass the entire bill, let us at least pass 
that entire provision that both of us care about and both of us think 
should be passed. The forgiveness of the advanced deficiency payments 
is critically important to a lot of family farm producers out there. We 
do not need a large debate about that. Let us go ahead and do this.

  So I ask unanimous consent that the Senate proceed to the 
consideration of a bill to provide for forgiveness of 1995 advance crop 
deficiency payments, as I described, and that the bill be read a third 
time and passed, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Grams). Is there objection?
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I have to object this evening. Maybe this 
is the kind of legislation that we could include in the CR this coming 
Friday. I think the Senator from North Dakota and I both know well that 
we are going to have to deal with a continuing resolution come Friday; 
that we are not going to shut the Government down anymore; that the 
President does not want to shut the Government down anymore.
  At least out of all of this budget discussion that has gone on for 
the last good number of weeks, both the executive branch and the 
legislative branch have come to that conclusion, and I agree that that 
is the proper conclusion.
  The Senator brings up an important point, that is why I brought it 
up, because it was not in his original unanimous consent, and I had 
hoped that we be thorough in dealing with this issue. I am glad the 
Senator has brought it up. It is a question of great concern. It is a 
repayment of nearly $2 billion of advance deficiency payments.
  I hope that we can resolve this issue, but it is not a separate issue 
to be resolved tonight. I think the Senator has brought it to the floor 
with just intention, and because he has raised the issue to the level 
of visibility that he does tonight, I hope that maybe that is something 
we will consider as we deal with final resolution toward the end of the 
week of a continuing resolution, but I do object at this time.
  Mr. DORGAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from North Dakota.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I know it is technical, but I did include 
that in my first unanimous-consent request. It was something I 
mentioned in connection with three provisions in the UC that I offered. 
But I observe, this is not a rider that needs a horse. This is a 
provision that does not need to wait for Friday. It does not need to 
wait for next July. It does not need to wait for something else that is 
moving. It can be done any time.
  The reason I offer it is, I would like to see an extension of the 
current farm bill for a year with the provisions I suggested. If that 
is not possible, I would like to see us decide to tell farmers what is 
possible. It ought to be possible for us to deal with the forgiveness 
of advance deficiency payments. It does not, as I said, need something 
else coming along to jump on. This is not a cargo looking for a train. 
This is an idea we ought to advance.
  I encourage us, if we cannot do it tonight, let us do it tomorrow. If 
we cannot do it tomorrow, let us do it the next day.
  The one thing I suggest to the Senator from Idaho, when we talk about 
continuing appropriations and shutdowns--I am delighted there will not 
be any more shutdowns, and I pray there will not be, because I do not 
think it serves anyone's interest. Nobody wins. The way we are able to 
avoid that is the way we are able to convince everybody in this Capitol 
Building on all sides that they cannot use this as leverage any longer; 
they cannot threaten someone over a CR--``If you don't have this, we 
won't enact a CR''--and that is what results in a shutdown.
  Let me say, I understand the objection. I expected the objection. My 
hope is that perhaps tomorrow--I do not know if anybody will be doing 
unanimous-consent requests tomorrow, but if we do, I have a number of 
good ideas. This is one of them, and I would like this idea to sort of 
lead the parade here. We should do the things that both of us would 
agree on, that both of us think are important for our farmers, that 
both of us believe would represent good policy. If that is the case, 
let both of us do it together, either now or tomorrow morning.
  I guess since there is an objection now, maybe we can talk about it 
again tomorrow. Again, I understand exactly what has happened. This, 
one way or another, needs to get resolved.
  The Senator from Nebraska was on the floor, the Senator from Iowa, 
the 

[[Page S307]]
Senator from Idaho, my colleague from North Dakota. All of us have said 
exactly the same thing. We have said it with fingers pointing in 
different directions, I guess. That is a habit I hope we get over this 
month and maybe the rest of the year, not talking so much about what 
happened but what should happen, what must happen, what must we do to 
make this a better country.
  We all described one common goal today, and that is, we ought to 
provide an answer to rural America. The Senator from Idaho probably has 
had the same experience I have. I went to a farm show, and I was 
talking to a lot of farmers. I was talking to a fellow who sells Ford 
pickup trucks. He was talking to me. He said, ``You know, I need to 
find out from you, when on Earth are you going to pass a farm bill?''
  I said, ``Why are you so interested in that? Do you have crop acreage 
out there?''
  He said, ``Oh, no, I don't have crops. What I have are farm 
customers. I have farm customers who were going to buy a pickup who now 
say, `I am not going to be able to make this purchase until I find out 
what the circumstances are going to be for the farm bill.' ''
  You need to understand it is not just farmers. It is agribusiness. It 
is people who sell vehicles and supplies. Everybody out there is facing 
the same kind of problems as a result of this uncertainty.
  So my hope is that the expression by all of us in the last few hours 
might result in some common good here. If we can get together and talk 
about this, we can probably find a key to unlock this and move ahead 
and give farmers the answer they deserve.
  We only do this once every 5 years. It is pretty hard to foul this 
up. But, in my judgment, a mistake was made when it was decided to 
piggyback it on something else that was moving along. That is to 
piggyback it on reconciliation. We have never done that before. I do 
not think it is the right thing to do.
  What is past is past. The question now is: How do we extract from 
this and decide to do this the right way?
  The interesting thing, I say to the Senator from Idaho, is we have 
two leaders in this Senate who come from farm country. Senator Dole, of 
course, is from a big grain-producing State, and Senator Daschle has 
represented farmers many years from the State of South Dakota.
  We have two leaders who know a lot about agriculture. Both of them 
know a great deal about these issues. I know both of them have tried--
in fact, Senator Daschle is a cosponsor of the legislation I just 
discussed and introduced today--to provide some answers.
  My hope is all of us can get together and start figuring out a way to 
bridge this gap and solve this problem. I hope perhaps the Senator and 
I could talk again in the next day or so and see if we can just 
incrementally address these issues. Maybe the first increment is the 
advance deficiency payment.
  So, with that, I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Exon as a 
cosponsor to the legislation that I introduced today.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. CRAIG addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Idaho.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, the Senator from North Dakota and I 
probably agree more than we disagree on agricultural policy, and I 
think both he and I recognize the importance of our concerns this 
afternoon and what we have tried to say from the Senate to the leaders 
of the Senate and to the President.
  The President cannot be allowed to only have rhetoric on this issue. 
He must show action. He has to come forward, and he has not yet come 
forward with a farm plan.
  Clearly, this morning at the White House, with the discussion among 
our agricultural leaders, our Senate and House leaders and the 
Secretary, in all fairness but with no criticism, this administration 
is without a plan as we speak. That simply has to change if we are to 
work out our differences on farm policy.
  Budget reconciliation, Mr. President, over the years has taken a 
variety of forms, and it takes those forms as the budget requires it 
to. Those provisions of the farm bill or farm policy that are in budget 
reconciliation are those that drive budgets--conservation, farm credit, 
some of those that are not there. We are not through with those. We 
will ultimately package a farm bill this year, and I think the Senator 
from North Dakota and I both recognize that for it to be freestanding 
on this floor, a very large part of it has to be bipartisan, and we 
will work at every effort to solve that.
  The work that we did earlier this year that found its way into budget 
reconciliation did get a lot of support. It is not to say that it did 
not get support. The American Farm Bureau supported it, the National 
Corn Growers Association supported it, the National Grain Trade Council 
supported it. I noticed the North Dakota Grain Growers Association lent 
their support to it, the Iowa Cattlemen, the Iowa Corn Growers. 
Obviously, my colleague mentioned the majority leader. Well, Kansas was 
right in there offering the support to it from the Kansas Association 
of Wheat Growers and bankers and feed and grain associations and Kansas 
Fertilizer and Chemical Association. It is a bill that offers broad-
based support to American agriculture, and I think it is important that 
the Record show that.
  There are disagreements, and there are differences. My colleague from 
North Dakota and I are tremendously concerned about what has happened 
in discretionary spending over the last good number of years, to see 
that direct payments to American agricultural producers from 1986 to 
today has been reduced in real dollars about 60 percent. The problem we 
have now is trying to balance all of that out.

  Ironically enough, when we gained majority here in the U.S. Congress, 
we knew that to get the kind of budget control we had to have, we could 
no longer go to the discretionary side, as my colleagues party has gone 
for one too many year, and we had to go to entitlements. Even though we 
brought agricultural spending down, there is no question that that 
happened with policy change. We are gridlocked here today over 
entitlement battles. If we are still going to get the budget savings 
and leave entitlements untouched, I am afraid that my colleague from 
North Dakota and I are going to be locked together in a battle to 
protect agriculture.
  This administration still wants to take much too much out of 
discretionary spending and free up or allow relatively untouched a 
variety of the entitlement areas. What we tried to offer was some 
balance. There is disagreement at this time, and I hope we can arrive 
at a balanced budget. The President has finally agreed to 7 years and 
CBO. But there is a lot of difference out there still.
  The one thing I think my colleague and I agree on this evening is the 
immediacy of the situation with American agriculture. We are not going 
to see another shutdown. Programs are going to be funded. But how long 
will they be funded, and how far into the next cropping season? The 
signals we send now and in the next few months are going to be ever so 
important, as American agriculture begins to farm and puts together its 
budgets and farm programs, buys the new pickup, if you will, looks at 
the new combine, puts the budget together for the fertilizer, seed 
grain, corn, and all of that. That is what it is all about. I hope that 
by the weekend, possibly, we can have resolved this issue. Maybe it 
will come with a CR on Friday, maybe it will not. But I certainly hope 
that all parties involved will engage and get it resolved so that we 
can send a critical message to agriculture in this country, which they 
are now asking for.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, the Senator from Idaho and I have, long 
ago, worn out our welcome. But I did just want to add a point about the 
administration. The Senator from Idaho said gingerly that this 
administration had no farm plan, was not active or engaged in the farm 
bill debate. I do not want that to pass. We have an Agriculture 
Secretary, former Congressman Dan Glickman, who comes from Kansas, who 
was confirmed with unanimous support. He knows agriculture and had 
served on the House Agriculture Committee. He knows it very well. He is 
a strong advocate for family 

[[Page S308]]
farmers, as is the President. In fact, because I was part of the budget 
negotiations, Senator Exon and I were involved in many of the 
negotiations, some at the White House.
  I have seen the President's reaction weighing in on the agriculture 
issues. He very much wants there to be a safety net or a farm program 
that helps family-size farms in this country. He hired and appointed an 
Agriculture Secretary who believes that very strongly. I do not want 
the moment to go and let someone listening say, ``Well, gee, they said 
nobody down at the White House cares.'' Secretary Glickman, I think, is 
a terrific Secretary of Agriculture, selected by this President, 
representing this President, to try to get a better farm program. 
Hopefully, all of us can work together. There will be no solution to 
the problem without Secretary Glickman and President Clinton's active 
involvement. The meeting this morning, I think, was called by Secretary 
Glickman. They are active, engaged, and involved, and they want to 
solve this problem.
  I hope, along with the Senator from Idaho, that by the end of this 
week we will have advanced by this discussion today the interest of 
providing some answers to family farmers in this country, but 
especially providing the right answers for the long-term.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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